S.Y. Discovery cup and saucer

Cup and saucer, made from white fine bone china edged with blue and gold. Part of a larger set of crockery and engraved cutlery specially commissioned by Royal Doulton to be used by the officers and scientists on board the British National Antarctic Expedition 190-1904.

Each piece bears the expedition’s crest of a penguin around a belt motif. This may seem strange to use such fine crockery on an expedition but illustrates both the sense of pride in the expedition and the Edwardian sense of the correct way to conduct themselves even in the middle of the Antarctic.